I first posted about this awesome graph back in 2010, but it is now available from HistoryShots as print. Besides all the rare economic info, what’s fascinating to me is that this was orginally created as a piece of wall advertising. The most commonly circulated version had it as an ad for an envelope company, though I’ve seen others.

I recently went to the eastern shore of Maryland and came across this awesome bank logo on the outside wall of a bank. It made me want to walk in and give them my money. and other people’s money. and sacrifice some children in their name.

Now let’s compare it to citibank’s logo, which only succeeds in evoking slightly positive associations for a series of tween magazines that I will never read:

I am a huge fan of simple and memorable. but I think branding has overtaken design – companies just pick something catchy and throw it in peoples faces over and over until it becomes “them”. It’s important sometimes to remember a time when a logo actually evoked real emotions. Look at the font selection. Look at the kerning. Look at the stone they chose for the outside wall of the bank as a background, that has aged beautifully over the years. Look at the bird. It’s a real sculpture with depth, shadows, and gravitas. I mean, wow, it’s just stunning.

Ok, now everyone can chime in with pithy observations about how this would look terrible on a webpage banner, or how it makes them think of nazis.